| Adapted for the Internet from: Why God Doesn't Exist |
1.0 The 'official' time
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the U.S. Government’s official timekeeper. It is staffed by an
army of well-paid mathematicians who mostly do measurement and standards research at your expense. If the folks at the
NIST don’t know what time is, then nobody does.
According to the NIST, the definition of time is:
- " The designation of an instant on a selected time scale" [1]
So then, what is a time scale?
- " An agreed upon system for keeping time" [2]
Let's see if I got this straight. Time is an instant of a time scale which is a system for keeping time. Great! What have we
learned?
Clearly, the circular definitions of the experts are not very helpful and need not be addressed further, except to say that
perhaps the people at the NIST should spend less time on measurements and more on brainstorming definitions. The
mathematicians at the NIST should start by taking an introductory course in logic and by mastering the fundamentals of
the scientific method.
2.0 An instant has nothing to do with time
Not all appears to be lost, however, because the NIST also identifies time with the word instant. This raises the question of
whether time is a synonym of instant.
Most dictionaries define the word instant as a brief period of time and equate it with the word moment. Again we end up
with a set of circular definitions: time is an instant, where an instant is a moment, which in turn is an infinitesimal interval
of time. Is this what the mathematicians are referring to when they say that the definitions of Mathematics are rigorous?
So let’s forget about all of these amateurs and put instant and moment in their proper contexts. Specifically, let's
differentiate these two words from interval. Time is by any definition a dynamic concept and involves memory. An
instant, on the other hand, is conceptually static and observer-less (Fig. 1). If time is a movie, an instant is a photograph:
timeless...
" An instant—like a space point—is dimensionless; in other words, it is not temporally
extended. A period, on the other hand, is temporally extended." [3]
An instant comprises but one frame in the universal movie and is conceptually a cross-section of 'time'. This image
consists solely of static objects. An instant is synonymous with existence: all objects at a fixed location with respect to
each other. Said otherwise, location is conceptually a cross-section of time whereas an event requires an interval of
time (Fig. 2).
Hence, time is irreconcilable with the notion of instant. An instant is not a 'when.' An instant is a 'where.' The
mathematicians may want to make their interval as infinitesimal as they can imagine, but it will never amount to an
instant. The term instant of time is an oxymoron. It has an irrational meaning similar to ‘static motion’ or ‘dynamic
location.’
| Instant versus interval |
Fig. 1 Instant versus interval |
| Fig. 2 An instant is not a when. An instant is a where. |
| Bill died so fast that he died in an instant. |
| Relativists confuse the word instant with the term ‘infinitesimal interval.’ An instant is a photograph. An interval is a movie. Irrespective of how infinitesimal relativists wish to make their interval, this movie will never amount to a photograph. An instant is conceptually static whereas an interval is conceptually dynamic. An instant is to 'exist' what an interval is to alive or dead. Alive and dead both invoke a before and an after. These notions have a bearing on Schrödinger's Cat analogy. |
- Module main page: Newton purportedly discovered the three laws of motion, but he never defined motion!
Pages in this module:
1. The definition of the word motion
2. Position is not the same as location
3. This page: An instant is not the same as an interval
| An interval will always occupy two or more frames in the cosmic movie (as shown by the different locations of the cylinder). From a conceptual point of view, an instant is a snapshot, a static image. An instant has nothing to do with time and all to do with location. |
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- Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008